In the quest for lower noise, the power supply section was redesigned to implement an RF-suitable voltage regulator with under 10 µVRMS of noise. That is at least 10x lower than other designs!

A quality shielded inductor was used in the power supply to improve EMI rejection.

The included aluminum enclosure ensures stray EMI stays where it belongs--away from the sensitive RF circuitry.

Lower board-level temperatures further improves the SDR noise floor.

Temperature improvements:

A custom heatsink is affixed to the primary PCB with 3M thermal adhesive, to wick heat away from the circuit board and towards the enclosure.

2 pieces of silicone thermal pad spread the rest of the heat away from the device hot spots.

Power consumption has been reduced by an average of 10mA, which means less heat is generated compared to other designs.

The result is much lower board-level temperatures--increasing stability, improving sensitivity and ensuring maximum frequency range capability. The changes were first simulated, and then field-tested with a Flir E8.

Form factor improvements:

The NESDR SMArt was designed to minimize annoying USB port occlusion. We re-designed the SDR from the ground up to ensure the SMArt can be used side by side in any USB-compliant device, including tightly-spaced embedded devices. There is no need to remove the enclosure to run multiple SDRs beside one another!

The form factor re-design allowed us to move to the more universal SMA antenna input.